Highly aligned carbon nanotubes (HACNT sheets) have recently attracted great attention in developing high-performing ultrathin supercapacitors, which take advantage of the long-range alignment to improve electrochemical performance. While there are investigations into sandwich electrode CNT sheet devices, there are no known reports on interdigitated electrode (IDE) HACNT sheet microsupercapacitors (MSCs). This paper reports a facile method for rapidly fabricating high energy density ultrathin HACNT sheet-based MSCs with IDE planar configuration. Increasing the electrode thickness from 32 nm (5 layers) to 300 nm (50 layers) results in an approximately three times factor in performance. The 50 layer devices (MSC-50L) yield a top energy density of 10.52 mWhcm-3 and power density of 19.33 Wcm-3, making its performance comparable to those of microbatteries with potential for further improvement. Additionally, incorporation of MnO2 nanoparticles (NPs) within the MSCs-50L improves specific capacitance (242 Fcm-3), energy density (33.7 mWhcm-3), and power density (31 Wcm-3), outperforming current thin-film MSCs and matching the performance of 3D MSCs. MSCs also demonstrate a long cycle life (7000 charge-discharge cycles) with less than 5% capacitance fade. These findings suggest that HACNT sheets have substantial potential as active electrode materials for ultrathin high energy density microscale power sources.
Keywords: carbon nanotube sheet; energy storage; highly aligned; microsupercapacitor; portable electronics.